Posts Tagged 'Anil Kumble'

Buying Wide Angle by Anil Kumble is without a doubt one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Most of my real life investments are giving me shallow returns, but I’m sure this book will rarely, if ever, lost its value.

This book is a collection of the photographs taken by Kumble throughout his cricketing career and it is a great experience to see glimpses of the life cricketers have when on the road, and while playing – whether losing or winning.

There is nothing in it to *not* like the book. The only actual complaint I have is why was the book not longer? Why weren’t there more photographs?

If you are a cricket fanatic, this book is a must must buy. Wish the hardcover version was not so steeply priced. Would love to own a copy of the hardback sometime.

Now that all the league matches are over, it is time to check whether the Indian Team that has been selected for the T20 World Cup is performance based, or rather purely based on the past laurels.

Last time I chose my team based on the total number of runs scored, and wickets taken as my criteria. This time I am changing the criteria and using the Cricinfo’s Fantasy Cricket Stats (sorting it based on total points). And this time I am choosing a team of 15 that comprises of 5 batsmen, 3 all-rounders, 1 wicket keeper, and 6 bowlers (like the Indian Team already chosen for the T20 World Cup).

There are two names here that anyway would not have been in the team – SRT & Kumble. Replacing them would be:SRT – Virat Kohli
Anil Kumble – Praveen Kumar

There are some major surprises here, none bigger than: No MS Dhoni! The captain of the team is out. Karthik has been keeping better, and scoring at par with Dhoni at least in this format. Also no Gautam Gambhir, no Virender Sehwag, no Zaheer, no Ishant Sharma. Well at least for Sehwag and Zaheer, I can at least say that they did not play many matches, but Gambhir?

Anyway I do not have any problem with the team chosen for T20 World Cup, although I seriously wish that Nehra was going rather than Munaf Patel – this guy never seems to be giving his 100% (to use an oft-used cliche).

Wishing that this T20 brouhaha finishes soon, so that we can get back to the serious business of the Ashes, and the French Open, and the Wimbledon! :)

If we choose India’s World Cup T20 team based on performance [List of top scorers and top wicket takers] till now in IPL 2009, it throws up some major surprises. I am choosing 5 batsman, 1 all-rounder, 1 wk, 4 bowlers. I think this balance should be fine. So the team that comes up is:

SR Tendulkar
R Dravid
YK Pathan
RG Sharma
SK Raina

IK Pathan

MS Dhoni

RP Singh
PP Ojha
MM Patel
L Balaji

Just missed out bowlers: Kamran Khan, A Kumble
No other batsman has scored even 100 runs to be in contention.

If I compare this team with the team that played our last T20, only 4 names are common – Dhoni, Raina, and Pathan brothers. Rest all are different.

So Ganguly has taken the plunge, who would replace him for the England series? In all probability I’d say it would be either Badrinath or Yuvraj… Let us say that Dravid decides to hang his boots after the England series (let us be realistic, after Ganguly he is most prone to being dropped), for the replacement my money would be on the unselected of Badrinath/Yuvraj.

Next up would be the tour to Pakistan where a semi-new middle order would take guard – Laxman, Sachin, Yuvraj, Badrinath with Rohit Sharma as the extra batsman. Laxman would be 35, Sachin would be almost 36; but I’d say both of them would play even the next series against New Zealand. India then does not have any Tests till September end. By then I think Kumble would have retired, and Dhoni would have taken over the test captaincy too. Going by the current crop of spinners, I’d say Piyush Chawla or Amit Mishra would be the most likely replacement for Kumble. Laxman & Sachin would be close to retiring too, with Rohit Sharma, Kaif, and maybe Virat Kohli staking claim to the middle order positions. I’m hoping Zaheer Khan has at least 3-4 years of Cricket left in him, otherwise RP Singh would get another go at Test cricket.

I hope at that time Sachin, Laxman help the test-match newbies to complete their transition from the wham-bam to real Cricket and then retire gracefully by 2009 end or 2010 start & then we would keep our fingers crossed for the next 1-2 years that the Indian Test Team completes its makeover successfully.

By mid-2010, the team would read

Sehwag

Gambhir

Badrinath

Rohit Sharma

Yuvraj

Kaif/Kohli

Dhoni

Bhajji

Ishant

Chawla/Mishra

Zak

The bowling is still good, but I am really doubtful about the batsman, except of course Sehwag… I hope this Indian Team’s transition goes smoothly.

Meet the Blogger…

I write! Topic does not matter, can be my life, or my travels, or any match I saw, or the Hyderabadi life, or reminiscing about Raipur, or penning Short Stories & 55s.